Ground Zero
by BleachedAnarchy
Summary: A new creature has been sighted near the Crater of Atom. It has already taken the lives of over twenty Children of Atom. Dante Warner has been working on taking out the scum of the Commonwealth for some time, but now this new creature is threatening the lives of more people than the gangsters and criminals are. It’s time to put the scum on the back burner and take this beast out.
1. Prologue

**Prologue: Dante Warner**

Dante Warner is standing beside a steel door with his back against the wall, 10mm pistol in hand. A small time gang has taken a girl from Diamond City hostage. The girls parents had contacted Nick Valentine but he was booked, so he got ahold of Dante and sent him to deal with the situation. He happily accepted the job. He's tracked down the gang already. Now all he has to do is handle the situation.

"Listen. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. You've got three seconds to come out and release the hostage. Then we can all go on happily with our lives." Dante says in a stern tone as he takes control of the situation.

"Ha! Like we would give up this little slut! Unless you've got some sort of army out there you should turn tail and run!" One of the men yells back.

"Hard way it is." Dante sighs.

He checks his gun; fully loaded and ready to fire. He takes three deep breaths before shoulder charging the door, busting the weak locks and slamming it open. He quickly scans the room; three on the left wall, one in the right corner and one in the middle. The middle man drags the girl up off her knees by her hair, holding a .44 to her head. The other men grab baseball bats or pipe pistols. Dante takes a breath before quickly lining up a shot at the middle man, pulling the trigger and putting the bullet through his head. The two men wielding bats charge Dante, swinging hard. Dante backsteps, putting a bullet in each of their legs, imobileizing them. The other two start firing their pipe pistols. When this happens Dante quickly goes back to his position outside the door. They suppress him for about thirty seconds before they stop firing. Dante turns the corner quickly to see one of the men holding a door on the other side of the room open as the other man drags the girl through the door. He drops the man holding the door and moves cautiously but quickly to the door. After getting there he opens the door and moves down the corridor. He gets through the corridor with no problem. Once he arrives at the end he finds a door. He takes three breathes and swings it open. As soon as the door opens he is met with a bullet embedding itself in his arm. He growls before firing back, hitting the man in the center of his chest, firing two more shots to drop him. He scans the area to find that it is empty, except for the crying girl in tattered clothes laying on the floor. He rips some of his shirt off and ties it around the bullet wound on his arm before walking to the girl.

"Are you hurt? Did they do any physical damage to you?" He asks the girl as he scans over her body.

She shakes her head slowly.

"Okay then. Time to take you home." He picks her up onto his back.

He carries the girl out of the hideout before gently setting her down.

"Can you walk? I really don't want to carry you all the way back to Diamond City but if I have to I will." He says in a soothing voice, hoping to calm the girl down even slightly.

She nods slowly to his question and he smiles at her.

"Good. Let's go then." He starts walking in the direction of Diamond City.

They get back safely with no trouble at all. The girl didn't talk much which Dante completely understood why.

"Hey. It's Dante. I got the girl back." Dante says into the microphone at the gate.

"Come on in." The guard says as he opens the gate.

Dante takes the girl back to her parents where they thank him for what he's done. He doesn't accept any compensation as he knows they will need it. Afterwards he heads back to Valentines Detective Agency since Nick wanted to talk to him. He met up with Nick in his office.

"What's up? Pretty rare for you to bring me into your office like this. What, am I a suspect or something?" Dante laughs lightly as he sits down in the chair in front of Nick.

"Not a suspect. More along the lines of the right man for the job." Nick says with comeplete seriousness.

"What job are you talking about," Dante says, his curiosity peaking "Another small time gang?"

"Not a gang this time. It's a new creature that's been sighted near the Crater of Atom." Nick says, dropping a file in front of Dante.

"How's that a job for me?" Dante skims through the files.

"We think there is a group behind the making of the creature."


	2. Chapter 1: A Rough Start

**Chapter 1: A Rough Start**

Dante paces back and forth in the middle of his bedroom, this new job being the only thing on his mind. The fact that a group would mutate a creature doesn't surprise him, but the fact that the group is near the Crater of Atom doesn't exactly make sense to him. He immediately assumed that it could be the Children of Atom, until Nick told him that the creature has killed over twenty Children of Atom. The entire situation confuses him. About and hour into his pacing a knock comes from his door. He answers the door to be met with the smiling face of Nad Wright.

"Hey Dante! Piper sent me to find you. She said that she might have a bit of news that can help you out on your new job!" The young girl explains as she hands him the latest news paper.

"Got it. Where can I find her right now?" Dante smiles and ruffles the girl's hair, glad that she was there to at least take his mind off of the situation for a second.

"She's waiting for you in the market near Chem-I-Care," She giggles "Okay I have to go hand out more papers! I hope she can help you out!"

Dante nods and thanks her as she leaves. He grabs his gun off of his dresser and starts heading towards the market. He keeps his guard up at all times just in case any of the gangs are acting out. He arrives at the market without hearing anything or running into any trouble. Once he gets to the the Chem-I-Care he looks around for Piper.

"Looking for someone?" Piper laughs lightly as she taps on his shoulder from behind.

"Oh, I must have looked right over you." Dante turns to her and smiles.

"Well. Here isn't the best place to talk about your new job so let's head back to my place." She takes him by the hand and pulls him away from the market.

He just goes with it, following behind her back to her place; Publick Occurances. Piper locks the door behind them as they walk in. Dante plops himself down on the sofa, waiting for her to start spilling info as she always does. This is a typical thing for Piper to do; she sends Nad to get Dante, then spills almost every bit of info that Dante could need for his job. Something seemed a little different this time. She was sitting much closer than usual and she's never locked the door behind her on the way into the building.

"So. What do you have for me?" Dante asks her, a notepad in hand.

"I don't have as much as usual but what I do have should help you a lot." She says, seeming nervous as she pinched her fingers gently back and forth.

"Every little bit helps." Dante smiles, trying to lighten the mood a little bit.

She says nothing as she has zoned out, staring into nothingness.

"Hey. You okay?" Dante waves his hand in front of her eyes.

"Huh? Oh. Yea I'm fine." She snaps back to reality.

Before Dante can say anything else she starts telling him what she knows.

"The small time gang you took out a couple days ago. It isn't so small time. It's apparently connected to a string of other small gangs that are all run by one massive group of people. These guys are bad, worse than raiders even. The head group trades supplies with the smaller gangs in exchange for young girls. I'm not sure what they want the girls for but I feel like this is all somehow connected to the new creature sighting since the creature was first sighted after about three of the girls were kidnapped." As she says this Dante writes down a summary with all the big points underlined.

"Is that why you're acting so weird?" Dante asks her after taking the notes.

"Yea...I'm afraid something will happen to Nad." She leans into him.

As he is about to wrap his arm around him to soothe her a loud knock comes from the door. Dante goes to the door and opens it. Nick is standing in the door.

"You need to come with me Dante. Now." The pure seriousness and urgency in his voice tells Dante that something is very wrong.

"I'll be back in a bit Piper." Dante says before following Nick as he walks quickly towards the front gate.

Dante catches up with Nick before asking "What's going on? Why the urgency?"

"It's Nad. She's been kidnapped." Nick says, not slowing his movement as they go down the stairs to the gate.

"Holy shit. Piper was right." Dante immediately quickens his pace.

Piper was right to be afraid of this. Dante hopes that Nick knows where the group went, because if he doesn't, Nad is in a lot of danger.


	3. Chapter 2: Firefight

Chapter 2: Firefight

"Dante! You're gonna need this!" Danny Sullivan yells to Dante as he and Nick were walking out of the gate.

Dante turns around to catch his own Handmade Rifle. It turns out Piper had caught word of what happened and had Danny take Dante's gun to him. Dante had modified it to make it perfect for him. Light stock, short improved barrel, advanced receiver, reflex dot sight, large quick eject mag, and suppressor.

"Thanks Danny." Dante nods to him before turning around and catching up with Nick.

Nick had heard from a bystander that the small gang had taken Nad towards Cambridge. That's where they are heading now.

"So. How are we going to go about this?" Dante asks Nick when they get close to Cambridge.

"How good of a shot are you?" Nick answers him with a question.

"Pretty damn good. Why?" Dante lowers his voice even more as they get close.

Nick just nods and moves up into a small bush. He pulls out a case and sets it down, opening it to reveal a hunting rifle, with several different attachments, ready to be assembled. He assembles the weapon as quietly as possible. Dante takes note of the attachments. Marksman stock, long ported barrel, calibrated powerful receiver, long scope, medium quick eject mag, and suppressor. 

"Here. I want you to cover me as I scout the area." Nick says as he hands the rifle to Dante.

Dante opens his mouth to speak but Nick is already gone. He sighs lightly before laying down on his stomach and keeping his sights on and around Nick. After a while of seeing nothing Dante hears grass crunching behind him. He doesn't move as the crunching comes closer. When the crunch is right behind him he takes a breath and spins around quickly, kicking the legs out from underneath the person responsible for the crunching. In a blur he is on top of the person, pressing a combat knife to their throat.

"Wait! Wait! It's me!" Dante's ears are assualted by the sound of Pipers voice.

"Piper? What the hell are you doing here?" Dante gets off of her and helps her up quickly.

As Piper opens her mouth to speak she is cut off by the sound of gunfire.

"Ah fuck! I was supposed to cover Nick!" Dante jumps back onto his stomach, immediately snapping his sights to where the shots are coming from.

He can only see Nick, firing his Pipe Pistol through an oncoming hail of bullets. Nick ducks behind cover and looks up at Dante to see him waving to him. Dante holds up four fingers with his middle finger bent, telling Nick to draw the guys that are firing out. Nick runs farther back causing the people firing, the gang, to come out of cover. The gang members are all grinning and laughing, thinking that they've got Nick scared.

"Haha! You came alone talking all big and now look at you! Hiding like a-" The gang memeber that was yelling is cut off as a bullet passes through his head and he drops to the floor.

A few more members of the gang are dropped before the remaining few go back into cover.

"Piper. You take the rifle and cover us. I'm going to go flank." Dante says as he picks up his Handmade Rifle.

Before she can say anything Dante was already down the hill, approaching the building the gang is on the other side of. He slowly moves around the other side and peaks the corner. He is met by the backs of the remaining gang members. He quickly drops them before walking out into the open and holding a thumbs up to Piper so she knows she can come down.

"Now we just need to look for Nad." Dante says as he lowers his guard.

"Dante! Behind you!" Piper screams from the bush.

Dante turns around quickly, just in time to catch the stock of a gun with his nose. He grabs his nose and staggers back a few steps. The man puts the barrel of the gun to Dante's chest. Dante looks back to see Piper aiming down the scope with the rifle.

"Don't shoot to kill..." Dante whispers, waiting for the sound of the gun going off.

The man laughs as he starts to pull the trigger.

 _The gunshot echos through the area._


End file.
